The books, How to Tie My Shoes and Eloise's Birthday, had been checked out since the previous April. (In a blame-the-parents footnote, the story add that her father Tony also had some $100 fines owing for overdue audiobooks.) Hailey, standing by her mother when the officer arrived, is said to have burst immediately into tears.

"Is that policeman going to arrest me?" she asked her mother.

A Charlton public library employee, Cheryl Hansen, told CNN that she had "asked the chief 'when does something borrowed become stolen?' The chief said, 'When it's overdue!'"

Maybe I'm getting a little too misty-eyed, but it's still a good excuse to remind myself of the Seinfeld clip above (sadly you can't embed the full clip, but you can link to it), to wonder where on earth my own library card is, and to reflect guiltily on the books I've never returned.